365 Days
by SweetLProductions
Summary: When Caroline receives a call from a sick Klaus, who apparently is back in town, she is forced to make a decision that may just save the lifes of everyone she loves but turn her own upside down. Will she be able to do it? And if so what will the consequences be?


**Hey guys! So yes, for those of you who follow me on Tumblr or Twitter you'll know that this has been in the works FOREVER and I intended to get it done at the start of the summer but oh well, stuff came up and I had trouble seeing myself happy with what I wrote. Anyways, IT'S FINALLY HERE, YAY!**

**Now this is set a couple of months after the season 4 finale (some time in the Fall) but I did go ahead and change a few of the things that happened in the last couple episodes: 1) Bonnie is alive 2) Jeremy was NOT brought back (hence why Bonnie is alive) 3) Silas was dumped at the bottom of the ocean and NOT Stefan 4) Stefan is simply out of town for now. No, the baby plot has **_**not**_** been dumped but I think you guys will like the way I handled that since it'll not have any big part of the story AT ALL. So please don't drop the story just yet ;)**

**Disclaimer: Since I am from Denmark, English is not my mother tongue and I do not have a beta yet so I apologize for any grammatical or spelling/typing mistakes. Please bear with me.**

**But enough ranting, I'll let you go ahead and read! Enjoy ;D **

Soundtrack: Running Up That Hill - Placebo

* * *

_And if I only could,  
Make a deal with God,  
And get him to swap our places,  
Be running up that road,  
Be running up that hill,  
Be running up that building.  
__If I only could, oh..._

* * *

Caroline paced the length of the living room in the mansion furiously. She had called Bonnie over an hour ago, she should've been there by now. Running a hand through her distorted hair, she stopped to listen. She could still hear his breathing from his room upstairs but it had gotten slower and heavier, she noted. Biting hard down on her lip, she tried to figure out whether or not she should go up there and check on him. She felt bad for just leaving him in the bed like that but he wouldn't even know, would he? Unless of course he had regained consciousness but from what she could hear that was not the case.

Caroline could still hear the desperation that had been in his voice when he had called her up earlier that day.

"_Caroline. Where are you?"_

" _I'm home, why?"_

"_I need your help."_

"_Okay," came her wary answer._

"_I'm at the mansion. Please, come as quickly as you can."_

"_Wait, you're in Mystic Falls? What are you doing back?"_

"_Yes, I am in Mystic Falls. Now could we skip the questions, sweetheart, I don't have much time."_

"_I'll be there in a bit."_

Back then she had not realized just what he meant and how serious it really was when he had said _"I don't have much time."_ She hadn't known what he meant but she had still come as fast as she could, the tone in his voice enough to set off her alarm clocks. The minute she had walked into the mansion, calling out his name she knew something was completely off. There was something different about the house, something different in the air, and it wasn't just the 'different' that occurred when someone left a house abandoned for months. No, something was all wrong and she was only confirmed in her suspicions when she walked in on a very pale and sweaty Klaus. It was even more frightening to see than the time Silas had gotten into his head and made him believe he was dying. No, this time it was real.

A knock on the front door pulled her from her thoughts. She rushed out of the living room and into the hall, throwing the front door open. "Bonnie, thank god!" she exclaimed in relief as she practically threw her arms around her best friend's neck. "What took you so long?" She pulled away to let the brunette inside.

Bonnie stepped into the house, bag over her shoulder. "I had to stop by my house to get my grimories," she replied and turned back to look at her. "What happened again?"

Caroline shook her head slowly. "I don't know," she replied. "He called me up about one and a half hours ago, asking me to come as fast as I could. When I got here he mentioned something about some witches poisoning him or something like that but before he could elaborate he just collapsed on the floor." She sighed and started walking towards the stairs. "I decided to bring him up to his bedroom shortly after I called you."

Bonnie nodded as she listened and followed her up the stairs. "And he's been unconscious ever since?" she asked, an eyebrow raised questioningly.

Caroline sighed and nodded. "Yeah," she replied, twisting the handle and pushing the door open in to Klaus' bedroom. She stepped aside, watching as Bonnie made her way over to him. "He seems to be getting worse though. His breathing … has become slower." She bit down hard on her lip as Bonnie set down her bag on the floor, walking over to Klaus. She placed her hands on his temples and closed her eyes. Caroline stood by, watching with bated breath as her best friend starting humming words she did not understand.

Bonnie slowly opened her eyes after a few minutes. She stared down at the unconscious hybrid with wide, horrified eyes.

Caroline wrapped her arms around herself and stepped a little further into the room. "What is it?" she asked hesitantly, her voice quiet and full of concern. Her eyes flicked from Bonnie to Klaus and back.

Bonnie drew her hands away from Klaus' face and turned to look at the blonde standing behind her. She shook her head slightly, eyes still wide as she spoke. "I … I think he's dying, Care."

"What?!" Caroline exclaimed in shock. Her eyes shot to Klaus as she tried to process the words. "How?"

Bonnie sighed and walked over to her bag. "I don't know," she mumbled as she began to pull out her stack of grimoires and expression books. "It's hard to say if we don't know what they poisoned him with."

Caroline went over to Bonnie and kneeled down beside her. "Then give me some of those," she demanded. "I'll help you look!"

Bonnie nodded and handed the blonde half of the books before standing up and walking over to sit by the desk on the opposite side of the room.

Caroline let out a heavy breath before sitting down against the wall, still facing Klaus. The Original Hybrid couldn't really be dying, could he? Wasn't he supposed to be staked in the heart with the white oak stake? What had they done to him? She swallowed as she let her eyes drift over his sleeping form. Truthfully she had noticed changes in his heartbeat and breathing ever since he went out. When she had seen him before he collapsed she thought it was perhaps the same as last time, just a hallucination. But Bonnie had said he was dying.

Suddenly Caroline felt her chest tightening, breath catching in her throat. She quickly shook her head, shaking some sense into herself again. She knew why her body was reacting this way but she refused to admit it to herself. Instead she opened one of the books in her lap and started looking through it for anything looking slightly promising. While keeping one eye on the pages in the book she grabbed her phone and reluctantly texting Rebekah for any information that she might have.

Bonnie sat dead quiet and concentrated in the chair by the desk as she herself looked through the grimoires she had taken with her. Together they would find something, some sort of solution, Caroline thought to herself. They had to. Niklaus Mikaelson couldn't die.

The mare thought made her sick to her stomach, yet again for reasons she would not admit to. But also because she knew what would be to follow if he died; _they_ would die. It wouldn't just be Klaus who died. No, a few hours after his passing everyone in his bloodline would slowly start to drop; Damon, Stefan, Elena, Tyler … herself. Perhaps even Katherine although she wasn't entirely sure anymore seeing as she was now human. Everyone else in his bloodline would die along with him and she would not let that happen. She didn't care what it would take; she would find a way to prevent this from happening.

* * *

Caroline huffed in annoyance and exasperation and slammed the book shut, pushing it away from her. "I have nothing!" she exclaimed and rubbed her eyes, tired and exhausted from reading so many words in such a small amount of time. They had been going at it for hours now and both had come up with nothing. Rebekah still hadn't texted her back either so they had yet to find out what Klaus had actually been poisoned by.

Bonnie didn't look up from the page she had been looking at for about five minutes now. "We just need to keep looking, I'm sure we'll find something," she mumbled.

Caroline looked up as she realized how distracted her friend sounded. "What are you looking at?" she asked curiously and got up.

"Nothing!" the brunette replied a bit too quickly and changed page immediately.

"Bon, did you find something?" the blonde baby vampire pressed on, crossing her arms over her chest as she came to stand next to her. Why was her best friend suddenly acting so suspiciously? She reached over and tried to turn the page back to the previous one but the brunette snatched it out of her reach. "Hey! Bonnie, what is it? Why won't you show me?"

Bonnie sighed and shook her head determinedly. "It's nothing, I promise," she tried to talk her way out of it. "It wouldn't work anyways," she added in a murmur after a beat.

Caroline furrowed her brow. "What? Why wouldn't it work? What are you talking about?" She tried once more to turn the page but this time Bonnie slammed the book shut, almost slamming it around her fingers. She pulled her hand back with a deep frown.

Bonnie shook her head once more and opened one of the other witchcraft books which she had already done through twice. "Please, just trust me," she slowly replied as she searched through the new book. "We'll just keep looking."

"Bonnie Bennett, if you know something you better tell me because Klaus is dying right now! We can't just sit around and let him die if we could've done something to prevent it!" Caroline exclaimed, throwing out her arms in a wild gesture to emphasize her point. "If he dies, we all die; Tyler, Damon, Stefan, Elena … me," she went on, her voice cracking slightly as the fear of dying and losing everyone she loved in the process started to show. "There has to be something we can do!"

"I know, Care, I know!" Bonnie tried to reassure her friend. "Maybe I should just run home and see if I can find something else there?"

"We don't have the time!" Caroline practically yelled out in frustration, running her fingers through her hair. She slowly turned back and looked at the hybrid. "I can barely hear his heartbeat anymore," she said after a while, her voice barely above a whisper this time. "It seemed okay for a while but then it dropped all of the sudden and … he'll die, Bonnie." She turned back around to look at her friend with new determination in her eyes. "He'll die if we don't do something now and then we'll all die. So whatever you found you better tell me right now because we don't have time for this. We don't have time to try and find something else."

Bonnie ran a hand down her face and glanced over at the expression book she had slammed shut just a few minutes ago, contemplating her next move. She slowly turned her stare back to the blonde in front of her, shaking her head slightly. "It useless, Caroline," she sighed apologetically. "We don't have what it says we need and even if we did … I'm not even sure it would work."

Caroline's eyes widened slightly. Her eyes flickered back and forth between Klaus and Bonnie before finally settling on the latter. "Well, what do you need?" she asked hesitantly.

Bonnie looked down at the book again as she opened it. She read the page again, running her fingers over it as she did.

Caroline approached her, standing behind her to read with her. She let her eyes travel over the page and swallowed down hard. "Oh." Her voice was barely audible.

The witch shot a look at her friend as she walked over to the big window in the bedroom, looking out over the neat garden. "I'm sorry, Care, but I don't think there's anything I can do." The tears started forming in her eyes and she felt a lump build up in her throat.

Caroline nodded slowly but kept quiet. As she watched the orange leaves silently float around in the air outside she knew what she had to do. She understood that this was the only way. She couldn't be selfish now. She had to do this for her friends. She couldn't just let them die if she knew could do something to prevent it. Caroline Forbes would never be that selfish. She was a Forbes, dammit. And a Forbes would do anything to stand by what they believed in. Just like her father had.

Caroline was almost surprised when she felt a tear escape down her cheek. She cleared her throat and quickly wiped it away, not wanting to show any weakness now. She had no choice – at least not in her opinion. Maybe this had always meant to be how she was supposed to go. _For her friends_.

So as she turned back around to face her bewitched friend she felt her courage. _I can do this_, she told herself determinedly. And so she smiled reassuringly at the young woman in front of her and spoke the three words no one could've ever truly prepared Bonnie for: "I'll do it."

"What?" the other gasped, her eyes almost popping out of their sockets in shock. "No Caroline!"  
"I'll do it," she just repeated, this time more sternly.

Bonnie took in a shaky breath and shook her head in denial. No, her friend was not about to do this.

But she was. "This way, it'll only be me," Caroline stated. "It'll only be me and no one else! Elena, Stefan, Damon, Tyler … they'll all make it through with time. My mom will survive it – she has her work." She gulped down feeling her determination falter for a millisecond. "Let me do this, Bonnie, let me do it for them – for you."

Bonnie stood up and stepped towards the other girl. "But Caroline …" she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes.

Caroline just shook her head, cutting her friend off with a hug. "If I don't do this I'll die anyway," she reminded her. "This way all the others just get to go on living their lives. This is our only chance at saving them."

The brunette started sobbing as she clutched her friend to her. She held on just that little bit tighter because she knew damn well how this ended. She had done a spell similar to this almost two years ago in order to save Elena from the sacrifice. It had worked back then but could she do it again? This spell was a little bit different after all and she needed to re-access some of the black magic she had been trying to avoid ever since the whole Silas affair.

Caroline hesitantly pulled away, her cheeks soaked from the tears that had escaped. She took a couple of deep breaths to collect herself and wiped her cheeks dry. She gave her friend another reassuring smile before turning to look at the still sleeping hybrid. "What do I need to do?"

Bonnie blinked a few times before snapping out of whatever trance she was in. "Uh, I need candles," she answered hesitantly.

Caroline nodded and went for the door. "I'll see if I can find any."

Just before she walked out the door she glanced back at Klaus, biting her bottom lip slightly.

* * *

Caroline returned to the room reluctantly. She slowly walked over to Bonnie who was still sitting by the desk, some sort of parchment with a few hasty lines and words she did not know how to read scribbled on there. She looked up from the expression book as the blonde handed her the candles.

"I hope this is enough," Caroline sighed. "They were all I could find. The house is pretty empty."

Bonnie nodded and placed the parchment at the middle of the desk, the candles creating the shape of a moon around it. She lit the candles by one single look at them and then turned to Caroline. "I'm going to need your blood," she said softly.

Caroline nodded silently, stepping over to her. She bit into the palm of her hand as Bonnie poured what she assumed was Klaus' blood onto the parchment. Caroline followed suit, holding her bleeding hand over the old paper. She withdrew her hand when Bonnie gave her a small nod.

"The spell is similar to the one I used to save Elena from the sacrifice," the brunette explained. "It's not exactly the same though. It will buy you a bit of time but not much – not enough."

Caroline didn't respond, only took a few steps back, clenching her hand shut until she was sure the bleeding had stopped. She watched with bated breath as the witch closed her eyes and began to chant, the candle flames shooting up, almost as if the words encouraged them to stand tall. She bit into the nail of her thumb as her eyes flicked between Bonnie and Klaus.

The blood on the parchment started boiling, parting into dots that pushed away from each other only to be forced back together as if they were in a magnetic field. She noticed that Bonnie's nose started bleeding, the blood dripping into the boiling blood on the parchment.

Caroline felt a dizzy spell hit her as the blood parted in two, dancing around each other in circles before finally moving opposite ways in the old piece of paper.

Bonnie's chants became louder and louder and the blonde couldn't sworn she felt the room start to shake ever so slightly. The blood grew dark and seemed to be absorbed by the paper, creating strange circular patterns on it.

Then she stopped and everything became dead quiet. For a few seconds Caroline felt like the world was spinning and she was about to faint. However she fought the urge to give in to it and fixed her eyes solely on the male hybrid still sleeping soundly.

She started counting the seconds in her head. _Three … five … nine. _She couldn't help but wonder how long it would take for them to know for sure that the spell had worked. She was just about to ask when she heard the sound of a heart speeding up to an inhuman pace.

Klaus' eyes flew open as he gasped and jerked up into a sitting position on the bed. He blinked a few times and looked around the room feeling a bit disoriented and confused. She noticed his eyes searching the room as if looking for something until they finally settled on her and he seemed to relax.

Caroline let out a sigh of relief and offered Klaus a faint smile. It had worked. They had saved him. But then the reality hit her and she felt sick to her stomach. What now?

* * *

**So that's it for the prologue, guys! What did you think? Any constructive criticism is much appreciated since I am still new to actually sharing my writing even if I've been writing for 4 years now.**

**Is there something you would like to see in the future? Any moments in particular you would like to happen? Also, do you think Caroline should already know about Hayley's pregnancy or should she find out later? I'd love any suggestions and stuff like that.**

**And before anyone starts asking I would like to say now that I will **_**not**_** be keeping some sort of updating schedule. It can sometimes take me a lot of time to write a chapter and it sucks but I can't force my creativity. I am also starting my Pre IB year (look it up) on Monday so I can't say how much time I'll actually have to write. Suggestions and encouraging words really do help me though so again, I love those.**

**Omg, I seriously need to stop these rants. I fear they'll become a regular thing! Sorry in advance xD Just one quick thanks to the amazing Arthika! Without your excitement this probably wouldn't get posted today! Love you, sissy 3**

**Until next time! x Nicole**


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